Pages

Monday, February 24, 2014

The Not So Eastern Church

I can, I think, count on the fingers of my
one hand the number of times I have described myself as an Eastern
Orthodox.Usually the preferred
self-designation is simply “Orthodox”, but sometimes this provokes confusion,
as when I am further asked, “Oh, are you a Jew?”The respondent has clearly heard of Orthodox
Jews, and supposes that I must be one of them, though you would think the big
pectoral cross around my neck would tip them off somewhat that I was a
Christian.On these occasions I am
reduced to elaborating more fully, saying that I am an Eastern Orthodox
Christian:“You know, like the Russians,
or the Greeks?”The respondent’s eyes
then glaze over for a moment, since I am neither Russian or Greek, but they
usually let the matter drop.In these
conversations, the adjective “eastern” serves to connect me with a known
quantity, such as the Russian Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church—i.e.
the ones on television with the fancy robes and the icons.

There
is a reason for not referring to our church as “the Eastern Orthodox
Church”—namely, that we are not in fact eastern.Our own jurisdiction has its membership in
the west (i.e. North America), and my own parish is situated on the extreme
west coast of that western continent.So, in what sense are we eastern?Only in the historical sense, and long dead history at that.In the first millennium the Church was
dispersed throughout the Roman world, living in the west from Britain to Rome
and in the east, from Jerusalem to Parthia and beyond.(Yep, Parthia; like I said:long dead history.)In those far off days, east was east and west
was west and never (or rarely) the twain shall meet.The church organized itself into
patriarchates, including the famous five of the so-called “Pentarchy”, even
though the actual reality never was quite as tidy as all that.In this ancient system, you had Rome leading
the west, and Constantinople leading the east.Latin flourished out west, and Greek out east (and later on, Slavic languages
in the northern land of the Rus) and, oh yes, Syriac.In those days, the designations of “western
church” and “eastern church” meant something, since the faithful who lived in
the west didn’t often visit the east, and those in the east visited the west
even less often.Most people, in fact,
didn’t travel very far from their homes at all, and for the overwhelming
majority a trip of a hundred miles was the trip of a lifetime.The Greeks stayed in Greece, and the British
stayed in Britain.(The Irish monks took
to travelling, but that counted as a kind of ascetic exploit, and was quite
exceptional.)Thus “the eastern church”
was the church you found in the eastern part of the Roman empire, and which had
certain identifiable characteristics, including language, liturgical
traditions, and a certain way of organizing its life.“The western church” was the one you found in
the west, which also had its distinctive language (Latin), its liturgical
traditions and ways of organizing itself.Geography largely determined where churches with these characteristics
were to be found.

That
was then, and this is now.Since then
people have enjoyed a tremendous increase in mobility.Greeks no longer are to be found only in
Greece; they can be found anywhere.(One
estimate has more Greeks living in Chicago than in Athens.)And people formerly found only in the west
are now found also in eastern regions.Thus, people of religions that were once found in geographical
concentration in a particular place can now be found everywhere in the global
village:Roman Catholicism is global—as
is Orthodoxy.As is Islam.

In
this world it makes little sense to refer to the Roman Catholic church (or to
its Protestant daughters) as “the western church”, and little sense to refer to
the Orthodox church as “the eastern church”.Geography has succumbed to mobility and world-wide diffusion.Could one perhaps salvage the designation
“eastern” by using it to refer to the liturgical usages of the church that was
once rooted and concentrated in the east?Could one say that things like the use of incense, and chanted services,
and icons, and not using pews, are specifically and peculiarly eastern?

Well,
no, actually.In the church of Britain
before the Reformation, all of these things could be found there too.One entered a British church in (say) the
fourteenth century and found Latin—and also icons all over the walls, and
incense, and long chanted services, and no pews.It even had a large screen up front—the “rood
screen” (not exactly an iconostas), separating the nave from the chancel.Things that we now most commonly associate
with “the eastern Orthodox church” were once universal, even in the west.They are not so much specifically eastern as
specifically Christian. The west has
dropped most of them, and these things now survive only in the Orthodox Church.

I
would suggest therefore that the issue is not whether a church is eastern, but whether its teaching is true.I sometimes meet dear friends who come from the “western churches” of
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, who tell me that they could never convert
to Orthodoxy because it is “eastern” and they are “western”.Conversion is treated as a kind of betrayal
of their ancestors.But surely this is
to do a disservice to one’s ancestors, who would prefer that one choose the
truth whether it accords with family pedigree or not?And what about people from non-Christian
backgrounds?What about people from
India or China?Their ancestors were
Hindus and Buddhists or Taoists, yet no one sensibly suggests that conversion
to the Christian Faith involves a disservice to them.The fact is that for all people of whatever
ancestry or geography, conversion involves taking Abraham and the patriarchs as
their new ancestors, and like them “leaving your country and your father’s
house” (Gen. 12:1).To be a Christian at
all involves becoming a stranger to all the tribes of earth, and living as an
alien and sojourner here, and of confessing that here we have continuing city (1
Pt. 2:11, Heb. 13:14).It is folly to
say that we will embrace this eschatological rootlessness, but only if we can
still retain cultural vestiges that defined our ancestors.

The
Orthodox Church is not “the eastern Church”.It is simply “the Church”—the one that began in the east (i.e.
Jerusalem) and from there spread out into all the world.Schisms and other catastrophes have attended
it over the years as it soldiered on throughout the long and winding course of
history. But it remains now what it always was.One can perhaps find our church
defined as “the eastern church” in Google.But one cannot find it so described in the Creed.There we find it described with greater
accuracy:“the one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic Church”.Not so eastern, is
it?

1 comment:

I used to hate it when my late father would phone me and Maria on 7 January to wish us a Merry Christmas! Only because he'd been with us for Christmas dinner 13 days earlier! To his credit, he eventually stopped doing that.

But yes, I've never twisted my mouth around to saying "Eastern" Orthodox, and the sound of that directional adjective before the word "Orthodox" makes my hair stand on end.To add to your adroit observation that embracing Orthodox Christianity often means choosing new ancestors, let me add that I haven't time to for claims of an Anglo-Saxon or Celtic Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is as foreign to the English Speaking countries as Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. The Christianity of my Scottish ancestors is that of the Free Presbyterian Church, or the Wee Free Kirk as it's called. It's not a Christianity of icons or liturgy or mysticism; but a dour, miserable faith that led to many in my extended family embracing secularism, and in some cases, the occult. It's only by the grace of God that I am Orthodox (just to break ranks with Calvinism, I'll throw in my co-operation with said grace). While the Anglican elements of my mother's family (what little is left of them), finds my faith unfathomable. While at the same time I meet so many immigrants are our parish who fully accept the existence of an English speaking Orthodoxy, and who are willing to raise their children in such a parish. Reality itself shows that Orthodoxy is getting less and less "eastern" more and more universal.

Fr. Lawrence on Ancient Faith:

BUY the book

Fr. L. at oca.org

Followers

Father Lawrence Farley holds an M.Div.from Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology, and also completed a Certificate program at St. Tikhon's Seminary.

Since 1987 he has served as the pastor of St. Herman's Orthodox Church, OCA (Archdiocese of Canada) in Langley BC. Several priests, deacons, and lay members of new missions have emerged from the membership of St. Herman's.